The Lucky One
by RebelByrdie
Summary: Sequel to 'Smiles'. Capitan Jim Brass remembers watching Sofia fall in love. Warning: Slight femeslash and major charecter death. SS


Disclaimer: Lets got through all this mumbo-jumbo yet again…I do not own the television show CSI or any of the characters and premises there of. I make no financial gain from this writing endeavor…so please don't sue.

Rated T for Teen

Warning: Slight dose of femeslash ahead. The fic deals with the idea of a loving relationship between two adults of the same sex. It also contains a major character death and the fall out from it.

Author's Note: This is a follow up to Smiles…it felt unfinished somehow… This is a look at Sofia's side of the story from the POV of Capitan Jim Brass.

The Lucky One

Sequel to Smiles

A CSI Ficlet

By RebelByrdie

Like any good cop or poker player, Jim Brass could read people. He noticed the tiny things that people did. Out of sheer habit, he watched people, even his coworkers. Gil Grissom might have him beat with sheer intelligence, but Jim Brass understood people.

That and his own favoritism lead him to stumble upon a discovery that no one else in the lab or the PD had found. For people who were trained to spot an out of place fiber or a liar at twenty paces, the members of the LVPD Police and Forensics teams were very slow on the uptake.

Like any good investigator, all he had to do was look at the evidence and follow his instincts, to steal one of Grissom's pet-phrases, he followed the evidence.

* * *

It had been a slow week, so maybe his cop's brain was just looking for something to investigate. He hadn't expected it, or been prepared for it. One day, though, he started to notice that something about one of his detectives was definitely changing. In a cop's world, a lot of things can fester into serious, career ending problems. His own battle with the bottle flashed through his mind. The changes in Sofia Curtis, though, had nothing to do with liquor and everything to do with intoxication of another sort.

The small things were the most revealing. One morning, he caught Sofia Curtis singing under her breathe at her desk. He hadn't recognized the tune, but that wasn't the point. Sofia talked to herself, sometimes she even went so far as to argue with herself, but she did not sing. In all the time he'd worked with her he'd never heard one musical note come out of her. So, needless to say, that aroused his suspicions and his curiosity.

* * *

They had been subtle, he had to give them that, secret looks, slight touches, inside jokes. Their eyes spoke a language of their own, brown and blue saying everything and nothing at all. He'd smiled the day Sofia had come in with a purple flower tucked behind her ear, she'd been quick to take it out before any of the guys saw it, but the blossom had found a place in the spare coffee cup on her desk. A hardened detective wasn't really supposed to sport a goofy grin, it wasn't professional, but it looked good on the too-serious woman.

To use a term his mother might have, Sofia Curtis was smitten. No, it went beyond that, she was head-over heels in love. She hummed under her breathe, she stared out in space, smiling for no reason, she worked up a hell of a Florists bill. When she'd returned from a week of downtime, her feet hadn't touched the ground, and a delicate flash of silver at her neck told him that she had gotten more on her trip then a healthy tan.

The conservative in him wanted to argue that it wasn't right, it wasn't natural, the cop in him wanted to argue that dating inside the force was asking for trouble, the father in him couldn't argue with the fact that Sofia was happier then he'd ever seen her.

It wasn't a fairy-tale, though. Some days, Sofia would come in with gritted teeth and balled fists and all of the other detectives dodged her like a plague-infested monkey. While some spouted off PMS, the broken look in her eyes told him otherwise. Those spells, never lasted though, she always bounced back and seemed all the happier for the funk.

The relationship deepened, when one had a bad night, the other suffered…when they were amorous with each other, big smiles lit up both the PD and the Forensics lab. One case brought a smile to his lips. Sofia had left the PD in all black but when she'd returned the black shirt she was sporting had not been hers and the big grin on her face told Jim exactly why she'd been late. No one else had noticed.

* * *

They had noticed, though, when that call came in. When a voice came screaming over the radio. It was the worst call a cop could hear. The words had echoed through the room.

"_Explosion on a secured scene! We've got a CSI down! Get an ambulance and the bomb-squad here now!"_

He'd never seen the blood drain out of a woman's face so fast. Sofia had almost fainted right there and then. He remembered calling Grissom and confirming Sofia's worst possible fears. He remembered driving her to the hospital and holding her. He remembered her body sagging against him when that doctor came out and shook his head.

He remembered the look on the others faces when they finally saw what had been under their noses the entire time.

* * *

He watched her now, everyone did. Their secret relationship, their love, was out now. The kind offered empty condolences, the spiteful made remarks about her. No one, though, could ignore the heartbreak so clearly written on her too-pale face. So they stood there, in their best clothes, talking in low voices and everyone watched her. Sofia stood there, arms around herself, staring off into space. All those in attendance at Sara Sidle's memorial service could plainly see how much Sofia was suffering. Jim knew right there and then as she stood there, looking completely broken….Sara Sidle had been the lucky one.

Fin


End file.
